St Rita

 St Rita of Cascia

Happy feast of St Rita on May 22nd - Patron of impossible cases, difficult marriages, and parenthood.

Margherita (Rita) Lotti was born in 1381 in Roccaporena, a small suburb of the hilltown of Cascia (near Spoleto, Umbria, Italy). Her name, Margherita, means "pearl", but she was affectionately called Rita. Her parents, Antonio and Amata Ferri Lotti were known to be noble, charitable people, known as Conciliatori di Cristo or Peacemakers of Christ.

Bees

source: stritashrine.org

The day after her baptism, her family noticed a swarm of white bees flying around her as she slept in her crib. However, the bees peacefully entered and exited her mouth without causing her any harm or injury. Instead of being alarmed for her safety, her family was mystified by this sight and took this as a sign to indicate that the career of the child was to be marked by industry, virtue, and devotion

Troubled marriage

Despite her repeated requests to be allowed to enter a convent of religious sisters, she was married at age twelve to a nobleman named Paolo Mancini, as arranged by her parents, a common practice at the time. Her husband, Paolo Mancini, was a rich, quick-tempered, immoral man with many enemies in Cascia. The marriage lasted for eighteen years, during which she is remembered for her Christian values as a model wife and mother who made efforts to convert her husband from his abusive behaviour.

Rita endured his insults, physical abuse and infidelities for many years. According to legend, Rita converted her husband into a better person, specifically renouncing an internecine feud between the Chiqui and Mancini families, known at the time as La Vendetta. Rita bore two sons, Giangiacomo (Giovanni) Antonio and Paulo Maria, bringing them up in the Christian faith. As time went by and the La Vendetta became more intense, Paolo Mancini became congenial showing signs of humility, kindness and patience, but his allies betrayed him and he was stabbed to death by Guido Chiqui, a member of the feuding family.

Rita gave a public pardon at Paolo's funeral to her husband's murderers. But Paolo Mancini's brother, Bernardo, was said to have convinced Rita's sons to seek revenge. They left their home to live at the Mancini villa ancestral home. As her sons grew, their characters changed as Bernardo became their mentor with the singular zeal to avenge their father's murder. Rita tried to dissuade them from retaliating but to no avail. She asked God to remove her sons from the endless cycle of vendetta killings and prevent murder, a mortal sin. Both her sons died of dysentery a year later, which some people believe was God's answer to her prayer, taking them by natural death rather than risk them committing a mortal sin punishable by Hell.

Monastic life

After the deaths of her husband and sons, Rita revived her interest in entering the monastery of Saint Mary Magdalene in Cascia but was turned away. Although the convent acknowledged Rita's good character and piety, the nuns were afraid of being associated with her due to the scandal of her husband's violent death and because she was not a virgin. There were also members of the rival Chiqui family in the convent and her presence would be detrimental to harmony in the monastery. 

However, Rita persisted in her cause and was given a condition before the convent could accept her: the task of ending the vendetta between the two families once and for all. 

source: stritashrine.org

She implored her three patron saints (St John the Baptist, St Augustine of Hippo, and St Nicholas of Tolentino) to assist her in establishing peace between the hostile parties of Cascia. She also sought the prayers of Saint Mary Magdalene, the patroness of the convent she wanted to enter. 

Rita’s prayers were answered, she went to her husband’s family and pleaded with them to put aside their hostility and stubbornness. They were convinced by her courage and agreed. The rival family, astounded by this overture of peace, also agreed. The two families exchanged a peaceful embrace and signed a written agreement, putting the vendetta to rest forever. 

St Rita the peacemaker. Source: stritashrine.org

A fresco depicting the scene of the peaceful embrace was placed on a wall of the Church of Saint Francis in Cascia, an enduring reminder of the power of good over evil and a testament to the widow whose forgiving spirit achieved the impossible., and God opened the door for her to enter the convent of Saint Mary Magdalene in Cascia to live the Augustinian rule of life at age 36.

Among the sisters, Rita stood out for her extraordinary obedience. In a test, her superior ordered her to water and care for a dead vine in the garden. Faithfully she carried out her assignment each day and revived the plant. She, along with St. Philomena and St. Jude, is considered the patron of hopeless causes.

Roses

It is said that near the end of her life, Rita was bedridden at the convent. While visiting her, a cousin asked if she desired anything from her old home. Rita responded by asking for a rose from her home. It was the dead of winter in January and everything was covered in thick snow, so her cousin did not expect to find one. However, when she went to the house, a single blooming rose was found in the garden, and her cousin brought it back to Rita at the convent.

St. Rita is often depicted holding roses or with roses nearby. On her feast day, churches and shrines of St. Rita provide roses to the congregation that are blessed by the priest during Mass.

The forehead stigmata

source: stritashrine.org

She lived this routine lifestyle for forty years until Good Friday of 1442, fifteen years before her death when she had an extraordinary experience. In contemplation before an image of Jesus that was very dear to her, the Jesus of Holy Saturday or, as it is also known, the Resurgent Christ, she was moved by a deeper awareness of the physical and spiritual burden of pain which Christ so freely and willingly embraced for love of her and of all humanity. With the tender, compassionate heart of a person fully motivated by grateful love, she spoke of her willingness to relieve Christ’s suffering by sharing even the smallest part of his pain. Her offer was accepted, her prayer was answered, and Rita was united with Jesus in a profound experience of spiritual intimacy, a thorn from his crown penetrating her forehead. The wound it caused remained open and visible until the day of her death. 

This partial stigmata is believed to have taken place shortly after Rita heard a sermon on the Crown of Thorns by Saint James della Marca, a Franciscan friar who was known for his powerful preaching and devotion to the Holy Name of Jesus. Sister Rita’s wound was so painful and unsightly that she is said to have remained in seclusion in her convent, even from her fellow sisters, for the last decade of her life. The one exception was a pilgrimage to Rome taken by all the sisters. Just before that trip, her wound healed, but it reappeared upon her return to the convent.

Sainthood

At the time of her death, the sisters of the convent bathed and dressed her body for burial. They noticed that her forehead wound remained the same, with drops of blood still reflecting light. When her body was later exhumed, it was noted that her forehead wound still remained the same, with the glistening light reflected from the drops of blood. Her body showed no signs of deterioration. Over several years, her body was exhumed two more times. Each time, her body appeared the same. She was declared incorruptible after the third exhumation.  It is still incorrupt today, now in a glass-enclosed coffin, in the Basilica of Saint Rita in Cascia.

She was beatified by Pope Urban VIII in 1626. and was canonized in 1900 by Pope Leo XIII. Augustinians claim that Rita's body has remained incorrupt over the centuries, and it is venerated today in the shrine at Cascia which bears her name. Part of her face has been slightly repaired with wax. Many people visit her tomb each year from all over the world.

Posthumous Miracles 

Rita died peacefully on May 22, 1457.  An old and revered tradition records that the bells of the convent immediately began to peal unaided by human hands, calling the people of Cascia to the doors of the convent, and announcing the triumphant completion of a life faithfully lived. The nuns prepared her for burial and placed her in a simple wooden coffin.  A carpenter who had been partially paralyzed by a stroke, voiced the sentiments of many others when he spoke of the beautiful life of this humble nun in bringing lasting peace to the people of Cascia. “If only I were well,” he said, “I would have prepared a place more worthy of you.”  With those words, he was healed; Rita’s first miracle was performed. He fashioned the elaborate and richly decorated coffin which would hold Rita’s body for several centuries. She was never buried in it, however.

Here’s the true story of how the Patron Saint of Impossible Causes became the unofficial Patron Saint of Baseball: It all started during the roaring 20s. The oil business was booming, Texas was hot, and investments spread like wildfire. A group of Catholic nuns and women in New York invested in one oil rig project in Reagan County, Texas, but the project seemed ill-fated, plagued by slow progression and insufficient funds. Because of this, the men hired to work the oil rig needed more to do. Cash flow had dried up and the oil was nowhere to be found, so they set up a baseball field in the shadow of the derrick. When they weren’t drilling at the dry well, they played baseball, America’s favourite pastime.
Meanwhile, the nuns asked a priest for advice. What do you do when you’ve invested in an oil well that isn’t striking oil? The priest suggested they pray to Saint Rita, the patroness of impossible causes. He blessed a rose in Saint Rita’s name. That rose was given to Frank Pickrell, a partner in the oil project. Pickrell returned to Texas and scattered the rose petals from the top of the derrick, naming the well Santa Rita No. 1.
On May 27, 1923, the drill hit dolomitic sands, called “Big Lime” in the oil business. They had to stop drilling. The next day (just five days after Saint Rita’s Feast Day), a miracle happened! Even though there had been no more drilling, oil burst into the sky! St Rita had answered the nuns’ prayers. The oil sprayed over a 250-yard area, and the baseball players quickly had to put down their gloves, it was time to get to work. Santa Rita No. 1 had struck oil!

References

1. Saint Rita of Cascia. (n.d.). The National Shrine of Saint Rita of Cascia. Retrieved May 22, 2024, from https://www.saintritashrine.org/saint-rita-of-cascia
2. St. Rita - Saints & Angels. (n.d.). Catholic Online. Retrieved May 22, 2024, from https://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=205
3. Saint Rita of Cascia. (2024, May 22). My Catholic Life! Retrieved May 22, 2024, from https://mycatholic.life/saints/saints-of-the-liturgical-year/may-22-saint-rita-of-cascia/